In many electrical codes, it is now required to provide ground fault protection in certain circuits, for example outlets in a bathroom or adjacent kitchen sinks. This is conventionally done using ground fault interrupt (GFI) receptacles where protection is required. This arrangement suffers from certain disadvantages. The GFI receptacles are expensive and where a large number of ground fault protected circuits are required, significant additional cost is incurred when compared with standard receptacles. In a case where a split circuit is required, as for example with a kitchen counter receptacle, the conventional GFI receptacle cannot be used.
An alternative to the GFI receptacle is the use of a ground fault circuit breaker for each circuit to be protected. Again, the cost of such a system can be quite high where a number a circuits are to be protected.
The present invention is concerned with a novel arrangement for providing the desired multi-circuit ground fault protection.